Lean leaves well-oiled gears

Remember when I told the story about using Lean process improvement techniques to enhance the service in our orthopaedic clinic? That was over a year ago.

Here's a note from a recent patient, a local student:

I just had to share this with you because it was such a neat feeling at the time. I saw Dr. Gebhardt yesterday (my orthopaedic surgeon) and there there was no wait for anything at all. Checking in was a breeze. I saw Dr. Gebhardt exactly on time. Afterwards, I was worried about getting the x-rays because the whole waiting room was full, but again, there was no wait. I've read about lean, SPIRIT, and process improvement on your blog, so it was such a neat feeling to experience and also to know what was behind my no wait experience! I think it provides a whole new meaning to patient-centered care. The only thing that was odd was that the front desk never asked me to pay...but I was so happy with my visit that I actually offered to pay my copay (and this is coming from a poor graduate student).

We will work on the payment part next!